


Scrabble

by Freakierthanthou



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 07:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freakierthanthou/pseuds/Freakierthanthou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Arthur owns a neglected Scrabble board, Merlin makes creative use of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scrabble

**Author's Note:**

> Update 10/13: This fic has now been translated into Russian by Kuzma-cat! If you're interested, you can check it out here: http://www.snapetales.com/index.php?fic_id=28810

Arthur Pendragon did not play scrabble. He did, however, have a scrabble board. It had been given to him for a birthday one year, and the board had been set up on his coffee table during the party for a game.

No one had been sober enough to play, and it had quickly devolved into writing rude words across, down, and diagonally. Arthur was fairly sure that the rules didn’t allow for diagonal play, but unfortunately, his rulebook had caught fire soon after the game had devolved.

He supposed that he could have looked it up online, but he chose not to. Instead, the board became a sort of much-abused coaster, supporting beer and coffee and takeout at all hours of the day and night, for several years. He never got around to taking it off his table, for whatever reason, and eventually it had become a sort of fixture in his otherwise-drab flat. The pieces were left in a drawer nearby, unused.

Someone likely thought it was very intellectual of him to have a scrabble board that was used often enough he needed to leave it out permanently. This, of course, had nothing to do with why it was left out.

He met Merlin Emrys through Merlin’s flatmate, Gwen, who knew Morgana, who was Arthur’s stepsister and frankly, at this point, he hardly cared what convoluted thread of chance had led to their meeting. They had met.

Not long after, somehow, Merlin had wound up invited to a party at Arthur’s. Not one of the ragers he had been known to attend from time to time when he was younger, nor one of the birthday parties that always somehow wound up with twice the invitees than Arthur had expected. This was one of the weekend get-togethers he hosted from time to time, so quiet yet informal that they hardly deserved to be called parties, attended, usually, by only a handful of his closest friends.

At the time, he had known Merlin for less than a week.

The next morning, Arthur had gone to clean up the minimal mess, mostly dishes left overnight in the sink. He had passed by the coffee table and noted, absentmindedly, that someone had played a few words. Initially he had ignored it besides wondering who had been playing the night before. Hardly anyone ever did.

But when he went to clean it up, he noticed that the words were hardly usual for a real game.

S       M  
L       E  
E       R  
W E L L  
P        I  
         N  
Arthur would only ever admit to himself that it did take far too long for him to read the oddly-placed note as Sleep well -Merlin rather than Sleep well merlin or Sleep Merlin well, the latter of which he refused to think made any sense.

On an impulse, however, as he cleared away the letters, he replaced them with some of his own from the stack next to the board.

T  
H  
A R T H U R  
N  
K  
S

Far less ambiguous.

Merlin was back a few days later to be utterly crushed by Arthur’s superior skill in video games, and his grin as he saw the new message didn’t go unnoticed.

Arthur couldn’t remember ever leaving the other man alone with the board, but when he was gone, the letters now spelled

Y  
R O C K  
U

He smiled so wide it hurt and left it that way for days on end.

The next few times he saw Merlin, they were all out of his apartment. The scrabble board was left studiously unmentioned.

Then Arthur was out of the country working and for some stupid reason (he hadn’t even been drinking had he?) the text he sent to Merlin inviting him over for a rematch included “I missed you.”

Merlin didn’t respond to that part, but he did come over, and when Arthur came back from the kitchen where he’d been refilling the snack bowl, the board read

M I S S E D  
E  
A R T H U R  
L  
I  
N

“Is that ‘Merlin missed Arthur’ or ‘Arthur missed Merlin’?” Arthur asked before he realized that he’d broken their unspoken rule to not talk about the scrabble board.

“Guess it could be both,” replied Merlin, stealing a handful of Cheetos. “I was going to go for ‘Missed you too’ but it didn’t work out. Couldn’t fit ‘missed’ with the others.”

“Oh,” replied Arthur and left it at that.

He cleared off the board before he had company over next time, but he took a picture before he did so that was totally not his desktop background.

Four months after they’d first met, Merlin fell asleep during a movie night and Arthur let him stay, putting a blanket over him as he slept on the couch and writing, on an impulse

      S  
      W  
D R E A M S  
       E  
       T

And in the morning when he woke, Merlin was gone but underneath Arthur’s message was

Y  
O F  
U

Arthur turned pink and took another picture.

Six months after they’d first met, Merlin kissed him while they were in the park and Arthur went home to write

 

K  
I  
S    M      W  
S P E C I A L  
      R      N  
      L       T  
      I  
     N E E D

Which wasn’t even a sentence but was true all the same.

Merlin spent the night for the first time a few weeks later. (The other time didn’t count. He wasn’t on the couch this time.)

This time he stayed after Arthur woke up, but once he left the scrabble board read

B  
E V E R  
S  
N I G H T

“We really need to find a new way of communicating” Arthur muttered when he didn’t clean it up before Gawain visited and laughed at him.

But when, some undefinable time after, the board was changed again, Arthur didn’t complain and he didn’t clear it off, although he did take a picture, he did make it his desktop background, and Merlin did laugh at him.

M  
E  
A R T H U R  
L O V E S  
I  
N


End file.
